Are Timberwolves preparing to trade Karl-Anthony Towns?
Jul 9, 2019; Marina del Rey, CA, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns attends the Gatorade Athlete of the Year Awards at Ritz-Carlton. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The Minnesota Timberwolves could be preparing to trade Karl-Anthony Towns.
The T-Wolves and backup center Naz Reid on Sunday agreed to a 3-year, $42 million contract extension.
As Larry Brown Sports writer Darryn Albert pointed out, the Timberwolves now have $443 million committed to big men. Most of that money is committed to Towns and Rudy Gobert.
Minnesota is the same team that took point guards with the Nos. 5 and 6 picks in the 2009 NBA Draft (neither of whom were Steph Curry). So it’s not completely foreign to the Timberwolves to have an excess amount of talent at the same position. But any team that is serious about building a contending roster would not have that much money committed to big men.
Minnesota acquired Gobert in a huge trade with Utah last offseason. Meanwhile, there were recent rumors that they were recently looking into trading Towns. Towns is beginning a four-year, $234.6 million supermax extension next season. Gobert is owed $131.3 million through 2026.
It doesn’t make sense for the team to have both big men making so much money, as well as Reid. If they had let Reid go, that would signal the team was maybe planning to keep running out their two big men. Re-signing Reid seems to signal that they are ready to get rid of one of their expensive big men. And it seems like Towns could be the odd man out.
